Saturday 8 September 2012 19.47 EDT
First published on Saturday 8 September 2012 19.47 EDT

With the South African flag draped around his shoulders, a smile stretched across his face, Oscar Pistorius was in no rush to finish his lap of honour on Saturday night. He mouthed his thanks to the crowd, stopping to wave and shake hands as he made his way around the track. It was – at last – his moment and he was going to enjoy every second of it.

The final sporting event in this gasp-inducing Olympic Stadium was, to the joy of the 80,000 watching inside it, won by the man who has done more than any other to pull the Paralympics from the edge of sporting endeavour and into the public consciousness. It was a fitting ending to an extraordinary summer for the man they call "Blade Runner". Since the opening ceremony of the Olympics he has run 11 races in this stadium, leaving it until the very last to win his first individual gold.

Pistorius made history last month, becoming the first double-leg amputee to take part in an Olympic Games after winning a fierce battle with his own sport's governing body for the right to compete. The sprinter, who had both legs amputated as an 11-month-old, failed to make it to the final of the 400m, but the accolades that rained down on him set the stage for the 25-year-old to become the king of the London 2012 Paralympics, an event he was expected to dominate. It didn't quite happen like that. There was a shock defeat in the T44 200m final, in which Pistorius came second to the 20-year-old Brazilian Alan Oliveira, followed by an accusation from Pistorius that the younger sprinter was running on blades that were too long and had an unfair advantage.

The controversy engulfed the Games and forever changed the image of a man who until these Games had been the only Paralympian with a truly global reach. Pistorius, who won his first gold in Athens as a 17-year-old, was soon back on winning form with the South African team, taking gold in the men's 100m relay and setting a new world record of 41.87 seconds. But the following night there was further disappointment when he was roundly beaten by the British sprinter Jonnie Peacock in the T44 100m final, finishing in fourth place.

The Blade Runner that leaves these Paralympic Games, then, is a different man to the sprinter who arrived in a blaze of glory from the Olympics. But his lack of dominance in London – and the size of the row that erupted around his comments – is surely testament to his impact on Paralympic sport. A 15-year-old Peacock saw Pistorius win three gold medals in Beijing and was inspired to push harder on the track. When the 200m finalist David Behre from Germany lay in his hospital bed after a double-leg amputation it was a documentary about Pistorius that got him up and running.

It is difficult to overestimate the esteem in which other athletes hold the sprinter. Before his 100m win, Peacock spoke of his idol with a respect that bordered on reverence. Oliveira looked crushed when he heard, in the wake of his shock victory in the 200m, that the South African had questioned the length of his blades, saying: "For me he is a great idol and to hear that from a great idol is difficult."

Whether the blades row has permanently tarnished Pistorius's image – and his brand, which is estimated to be worth around £2m a year – will be played out in the months and years to come. But the impact of his outburst and the mea culpa of sorts that followed – he apologised for the timing of the outburst, if not its contents – may not be entirely negative. After it, he is no longer Pistorius the poster boy, the magnanimous mouthpiece of disabled sport, but an athlete who can lose and be unhappy about it. Human, not superhuman. That does not detract from his achievements leading up to and including London 2012 – it magnifies them.

Pistorius, who will be 29 in Rio, will undoubtedly see more of his titles disappear, perhaps even the beloved 400m he won so comfortably on Saturday night. But he will ever be the man who opened the door for outstanding Paralympians to take part in the Olympics and the athlete who changed the face of disabled sport. The huge roar that went up in the Olympic stadium on Saturday night, as he received the final track medal of London 2012, felt like a resounding recognition of that.